Blog Transfer, 9-7-2007

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate wireless internet connections? I absolutely despise them, and every time I lose a connection when I'm in the middle of doing something important, my hatred grows. I'm on wireless now (like you didn't guess) so I have reason to hate them. Case in point: I just finished typing a new entry. Normally I start typing them here, then copy and paste whatever I've typed Word, then finish it there. See, I start off thinking it'll be a quick entry and fifteen minutes later, I'm still typing. So I move it to Word in case of a bad connection or I time out or something. Once finished, I paste them here and post. If something goes wrong in transmission, no prob, just repaste.

I didn't do that today. I started here, and twenty minutes or so later, I was finished. I clicked Preview and Post and it didn't work. My post was gone, just like that.

So after being mad at the foibles of wireless for about ten minutes, I decided to try again. Let's see, how did that go again…………

Inspiration for a title for my book hasn't struck yet. A few hums, but no strike just yet. I got a few suggestions from my instructor and it's a little scary how we were both thinking along the same lines. Kris is an artist, and I was thinking of a title along her art genre (just saved to a Word file…w/my luck, the power's going to zzzpppp). When I got my instructor's notes back last week, she had suggested a few that incorporated Kris's art genre. That was a little spooky! I actually thought of a fabulous title, but I'd have to rework my story to make it fit the title, and Kris isn't going that way, so I have to come up with something different.

As if I wasn't busy enough with work, writing class, Sunday school, a special gift I'm making for my nephew and his bride—it'll either be a Christmas or anniversary gift…depends on how long it'll take to finish it—pursuing my Pogo.com badges and just general "life" things, I go and do something to take away what little free time I have. Labor Day weekend was "Free Communication Weekend" on eHarmony.com and guess who signed up? Yep, yours truly.

Don't ask me why I did it. I'm still not sure myself. I thought about it during their last "Free Communication Weekend" which I think was Memorial Day (save again), but didn't do it then. When I saw the commercial this past Thursday, I thought about it, and next thing I knew, Saturday morning, I was signing up. I was just going to do the free thing, I wasn't going to get a membership or anything like that. I think you can guess what happened on Tuesday when "Free Communication" was over…yeah, I got a membership. Just three months, though. It's not as cheap as the six month or one year, but I just wasn't comfortable committing myself for that long. Three months should be long enough for me to decide whether I want to continue with it or not.

The questions weren't bad at all. There were pretty interesting, and they made you think about yourself. And yes, I was completely honest with my answers. After all, this isn't a game, this is real life, and if you don't answer honestly, you'll wind up with…well, what you don't want. Oh—Oh, gotta tell you…I had actually filled out their free questionnaire a few years ago and I remember it took forever! I thought the questions would never end. But now, they've completely revamped the questionnaire and it went by pretty fast, maybe fifteen minutes or so…so that's my commercial for them so far ("It no longer takes hours for us to learn everything about you!"). If you tried it years ago and the questions took too long, try again, it's much quicker now.

(Alt-File-Save-continue typing). I have about twenty matches or so, with five of them already closed because "I'm too far away." Not complaining, because I thought THEY were too far away! And I'm communicating with three or four, with the remainder "in the wings" waiting for their chance. The communication process is interesting. You get to send your match a few questions chosen from a pre-written list. You then wait for them to answer and ask their questions. And back and forth a few times. That's how far I've gotten to date…it gets deeper further on, but I'm not at that stage yet. I'm going to print out their responses so I can keep them straight.

And of course, they want you to post a picture. Oh, what joy I had trying to take a decent picture of myself. I don't have any of me (well, except for one taken two years ago in Northern Ireland and I was not quite close enough to the camera to make it worth posting). Like a lot of women, I don't think I photograph very well. When my picture is taken, I always think, "I don't know who that woman is…that is not the face I see in my mirror…who is that?" And the pictures I took of myself with my little digital? One word: "yeeccchh". Now, if my arms were about four feet long, maybe then I could take a decent picture of myself. But if my arms were four feet long, I doubt even eHarmony could help me with finding a date!

I told my friend Jenny about signing up—so far, she's the only one I've told, besides whomever is reading this, of course—and told her that I wasn't sure it was a smart idea. She asked me how long it had been since I've been on a date. I told her "Before Tom." She said, "You're ready." I laughed, which probably wasn't the best reaction because I was a work. Nothing like laughing when there's nobody around to be laughing at—eh, it was lunch time, and they don't mind if I'm on the internet during my lunch break. Anyway, before you ask, Tom is my former roomie/good friend who lived with me for, oh, a very, very, very, very long time. We went to dinner and did things, but they could never be called "dates" because there was no romance between us. We were just friends. Still are, actually.

Okay, I got off track a little. So I fiddled with my camera for a while and finally figured out how the timer works and behold and lo, a pretty decent picture. (Click on the icon, watch the paperclip dance…saved again!) I cropped it and cleaned up the background a little—I promise, I did nothing to change how I looked in the pic. Let's face it, if I enhance the picture and then they see the real me, they'll know I was lying and I'm just not going to do that. So we'll see how that helps my matches. With my luck, they're all going to close and I'll never meet anyone! Ha! Can I get a refund if that happens?

Okay, okay, enough with the jokes. Seriously, I posted the picture last night. We'll see how my matches react.

So that's all that's new since I last posted. Wish me luck on the eHarmony.com thing. And the writing thing. Oh, and the Pogo.com badge thing (three personal challenges this week, and I'm down to the last few to complete my 2005 album, so they're the toughest ones…good choosing on my part, eh?).

Til' later…(save often!)

P.S. Here's something weird…I just got another match from eHarmony.com, and it's the fifth person named David…what's up with that?